On Thu, Jan 02, 2003 at 05:23:44PM -0800, Cliff Wells wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-01-02 at 15:14, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Ed Wilts wrote:
> >
> > > On Thu, Jan 02, 2003 at 03:28:10PM -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> RedHat provides source on their website. They always have. I'm not
> aware of anything in the GPL that requires them to provide the source on
> the same *medium* as the binaries (in this case, CD's). It would be
> nice, but I don't see how it's required.
Actually, providing the source on media is a requirement. I'm too lazy to
look up the exact wording, but they're even allowed to charge a nominal
fee for shipping the media to you. Don't forget, not everyone has Internet
access and not everyone who has Linux systems has them connected to the
Internet. OK, so I'm not too lazy - the text says the source must be
provided in a "medium customarily used for software interchange". The
lawyers can hash out if the Internet would be acceptable to meet this
requirement or not. To make life more interesting, they could give you
a letter that says that you can download it, and then *charge* you to
download it for the costs of "physically performing source
distribution". As we all know, providing the sources for downloading is
not cheap. Assuming, of course, that the courts decided that the
Internet is a "medium customarily used for software interchange", and
I'm not too sure I'd disagree with that - electronic software
distribution is sure getting common...
> > How long does a GPL violation need to take place before it stops being
> > "minor"? How many exceptions to the GPL is RH allowed before they are
> > violating too many of the terms?
They're allowed exactly 0 violations. Just because I said it's minor
doesn't mean I condone it.
> > You asked for why I considered RH the distributor as the basis of an
> > attack as to if RH was violating the GPL. I have provided the actual text
> > of where RH has declaired themselves the distributor. You now attack the
> > claim on the basis of if the violation is "minor" or not. Is your
> > defination of GPL violation always an unreachable moving target?
I'm not attacking the claim. You have clarified as to who the violator
is and I agree with you - it's Red Hat. You have identified a GPL
violation.
> However, your vehemence seems misplaced. RedHat is not Caldera. I am
> not aware of any part of RedHat Linux that is not GPL'd (they do have
> non-GPL'd products, but they are not part of RH Linux). They have a
Minor nit - redhat-logos is copyrighted by Red Hat, and I can't give you
this package by itself - the license prevents this. If you want to have
a giggle, do the following:
rpm -qai | grep License:
See how many non-GPL licenses there are. Yup, all of them are free with
the exception of redhat-logos, but they're definitely not all GPL.
> long history of contributing back to the community and I don't see this
> minor violation as a reason to get our collective panties in a bunch.
Well, Cliff, I'll let you unbunch your panties :-)
> Anyone who can't figure out to go to www.redhat.com and get source code
> probably doesn't have the knowledge or tenacity to do anything with it
> anyway.
Agreed. However, even though it's minor, Red Hat does have the legal
obligation to live up to the terms. I wouldn't expect (nor support)
legal action, but that doesn't mean that Red Hat can sweep it under the
rug either.
.../Ed
--
Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Member #1, Red Hat Community Ambassador Program
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